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itwbennett writes "The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 19-0 in favor of a bill that would allow the Department of Justice to seek court orders to shut down websites offering materials believed to infringe copyright. 'Rogue websites are essentially digital stores selling illegal and sometimes dangerous products,' Senator Patrick Leahy, the main sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. 'If they existed in the physical world, the store would be shuttered immediately and the proprietors would be arrested. We cannot excuse the behavior because it happens online and the owners operate overseas. The Internet needs to be free — not lawless.' However, the internet will likely remain 'lawless' for a while longer, as there are only a few working days left in the congressional session and the bill is unlikely to pass through the House of Representatives in that short amount of time."

Actually I think you will find it pretty much didn't work from the get-go. Robespierre (Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre to give him his full name) was instrumental in getting laws passed where people could pretty much be executed on a whim.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how exactly do they propose to "pull the plug" on WikiLeaks, or any foreign-hosted website? Unless they put in a government-operated Great Firewall (a la China) on all links coming into the USA, it's technically impossible to block foreign websites.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how exactly do they propose to "pull the plug" on WikiLeaks, or any foreign-hosted website? Unless they put in a government-operated Great Firewall (a la China) on all links coming into the USA, it's technically impossible to block foreign websites.

Well, the wording from TFA indicates that they would put a court order for all US ISPs to "redirect" traffic away from the affected sites. That's a lot of ISPs. Though after most ISPs get closed down for contempt of court for not filtering the internet, it won't be so many ISPs:-P

This is just the first step. I don't think the technology is that important to the lawmakers. They're simply making it legal for them to attempt to shut down websites, via any technological means necessary. Hence, no one is r

What are they going to do when everyone starts using offshore DNS servers? Using a different DNS server is trivial.

Besides, the Domain Name System is a convenience, a layer on top of the underlying packet-switched network. It's a lot tougher to globally block specific IP addresses. But in the end, the network works as well as it does, because DNS can be depended upon to work the same way, everywhere. I hate to say it, as an American (and because I really didn't want to believe that our leaders are, frankly, so fucking stupid) but I will accept that this kind of irrational "we run the Internet" mindset just makes us into a liability. DNS is a service that the United States (under the dubious auspices of Network Solutions and Verisign) have provided the world for free, and which has offered incalculable political and economic benefits for everyone. Why our leaders can't understand that, and realize that the trillions of dollars of raw economic value alone that the Internet has provided to date, far outweigh the needs of a couple of criminal cartels.

And, as you point out, switching to a different server is trivial (so long as your ISP hasn't been ordered to block such access) but the benefits of a centralized, coherent Domain Name System will be lost if everyone in the world begins setting up their own DNS clones.

im in opposition of the bill as well, but im just curious as to your logic here.... if "Getting a court order is not due process." , than what constitutes "due process"? If this gets signed into law, i say there should be a proceedure that requires due diligance to prove the offence before the court order is issued, however i prefer that this bill not pass at all. Just wondering what your logic is, because if you are correlating this to the real world, all they need to raid your house, or shut down your bu

In order to obtain a warrant to perform a raid on my house, law enforcement is required to show evidence that justifies their action.

All that is required in this instance is someone saying "hey, whatever.com could potentially infringe my copyright!" and the court can order it shut down.

There is no evidence required. There is no panel to vote whether or not whatever.com is actually performing infringing activities or just offering a service that SOME people have abused for the purposes of infringement.

If some kid posts a clip of a TV show on You Tube, under this 'law', the courts could block access for every single citizen, even though YouTube is not directly responsible for that kids' actions.

Luckily, there is hope in judicial review and that's that EXACT kind of wording that the courts love to smack down. The prosecution will show great potential for loss of revenue (requiring only a "rational basis" for skirting due process), but since a website is very easily argued to be a free speech, strict scrutiny of the legislation will be required and the prosecution will have to show:

1) a compelling gov't interest (nat'l security, many lives, etc.)2) the law is narrowly tailored to achieve a stated go

"So you're okay with me stealing your shit if I can say you weren't going to use it anyhow, and hence weren't deprived of anything?"

Well, no, I'm not okay with you stealing from me because then you have deprived me of something that I previously owned, which is something that pirates don't do. Pirates aren't stealing physical objects, they are making copies of data, and in the process, not a single person is deprived of anything. Don't compare it to stealing physical objects. Seriously.

"Doesn't matter if someone is deprived or not"

Yes, it does. If they're not being deprived of anything then how are they being hurt?

"you're not authorized to make a copy."

Right now, you mean. My entire point is that they should stop trying to restrict an action that hurts no one and actually fix the broken system that forces artists to try to utilize artificial scarcity.

Actually, congress can define due process. They make the laws and constitute the courts. There is no controlling authority over due process that is above congress outside of anything in the constitution.

Depending on how you ask the question, I'm sure you could get "the majority" to say pretty much whatever you want. There are many freedoms that can be restricted without due process, assuming you define "freedom" to include "ability to do whatever you please, legal or not".

My beef is that it made it through a government committee with no opposition, when the majority of citizens do not or would not wish to give these powers to the government, who is supposed to act in the best interests of the majority.

I don't know that it will make it through the H.O.R. (haha "whore") but it's shocking to see not a single 'nay' vote on something in such dispute in the real world.

There probably were folks who thought it was a bad bill, but voted for it anyway because it bought them leverage on (what they felt were) more important issues.

I'm a bit of a state house watcher, and I've heard politicians stand up and speak against bills five minutes before voting for them. Basically, if the chairman of the committee favors something and you don't, but it's going to pass anyway, you curry favor with the chairman by letting him submit the bill to the floor with 'unanimous approval', thereby increasing the chances of getting your own issue heard by the now appeased chairman in the future. In the end, you get the same result you would have if you opposed the thing, but the next time you need something, you're more likely to get it.

That or the HVAC might have been out. Our state legislature seems to decide completely on-the-fly that 'today is going to be the last day of session'. They typically suspend public hearings and pass 300 pieces of legislation that night. Why would you suspend public hearings and do 80% of your work on one coffee-fueled all-nighter? Well, the committee rooms don't have air conditioning, suits are really hot, and most of the legislature is a bit portly. Once the summer heat starts penetrating the marble walls, there's no stopping it until late October, so they 'go Nike' on democracy's ass and Just Do It.

Yeah, but it made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee; you know, the committee that is charged with upholding the constitution. The idea that something that should be a very contentious topic makes it through a committee who's primary responsibility is supposed to be safeguarding our constitutional rights without a single vote against it is, at the very least, concerning.

I know nothing about the actual work or purpose of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but I do know the fundamentals. You Yanks have separated your government into 3 major branches with the intention for them to work against each other and check each other's power. It would seem to me entirely reasonable that the Senate Judiciary Committee exists for the sole purpose of subverting the work done by the Supreme Court: these are the people who, akin to John Yoo, work hard to establish just how much trash they can drive through the Constitutional checkpoint. I don't even believe that it is necessarily a bad thing (the law must evolve), I just would not expect them to be the guardians of the Constitution, since it is clearly not their job.

I may not agree with this decision, but I think there is a reason we don't directly vote on every issue. We instead delegate that to people who have the time to understand the issues and then vote on them appropriately. Also our system accounts for the fact that while the majority may favor this or that, it also matters how MUCH each person cares about each issue....that is how they prioritize such things in electing a representative. Maybe the majority favors something, but the minority that doesn't, ca

it also matters how MUCH each person cares about each issue....that is how they prioritize such things in electing a representative.

But in practice, it also matters that the television news organizations have a conflict of interest. On the one hand, they should present all issues and all candidates to the public, but on the other hand, they all share a corporate parent with a movie studio in the MPAA.

The majority are the working class, who's time is taken up by things like work, school, and children and who's thoughts tend to focus on things like what bills are due, if their kids are healthy, etc.

The minority, in this case politicians, don't "care" more about the issue. They just don't have the day-to-day issues that the majority has to worry about. Why should what they, being in the minority, want hold more weight than what we, the majority, want? They must forget, we may be in

You're right about everything except who pays the politicians. The corporates in whose interest laws like these are passed are the ones paying the politicians, not the working class. (or any other class).

The majority of the population does NOT have a clue, if a politician (or a hired actor, or whatever) tells them that this is right, they will believe so. Don't worry, happens the same in the election of presidents, most vote what media tells them.

I thought the government was for the people by the people. What a fucking joke.

No offense, but that's taking naivety awfully far.

The fourth branch of government, corporations and banks, swing as much power as any two of the other branches. Our government has faded from a bright, hopeful experiment to one bunch of people lording it over another bunch of people- Pretty much how most "governments" have always worked throughout history. The primary difference nowadays is that the dominant group has a historically unheard of technological advantage with which to distract the peons fro

I know that you aren't quite sure what advantage I'm referring to. That is why I continue to use the term "naive".

You refer to technology such as "(linux, truecrypt, ipsec vpns, etc etc etc)", implying that this is the technology that levels the field??? The vast, and I mean the overwhelmingly vast majority of Americans don't know what these things are, let alone how to use them. Let alone how to use them effectively. So, the peons are more literate than ever before, and have access to vast "stores of knowledge" via the internet? Internet access wasn't the level of technology to which I was referring. The dominant, powerful people in this nation, people who control the majority of wealth and power, have exclusive access to technology that goes a bit beyond this.

Several examples come to mind, but one with which I have direct experience is easiest to talk about- Last year I ended a contract completing enhancements for a high-frequency trading package for a mid-sized trading house. The use of this technology, which incidentally makes use of your great equalizer, Linux, has been pulling in an incredible, I mean a whole shit load, of cash for the firm... and this is a mid-sized firm, and the software probably isn't as good as what I've heard the bigger guys use. I talk to the traders now and then- You simply would not believe how much money is being siphoned off for the benefit of a -very- small group of people. I made decent coin on this contract, but not what they make using the system. No regrets- My point is that this is just one type of very profitable manipulation made possible by -technology-, technology to which you and I do not have, and will never have, access. I know the principles and could write my own system, but would never make it out of the legal system before I was too old to use it. This type of technology alone effects an unprecedented transfer of wealth. There are many other examples, examples that are more directly malevolent that involve data gathering and surveillance on a large scale, among others.

This didn't pass the senate, it came out of a senate comity. It now needs to find itself a floor vote before it passes the senate. There are 5 times as many senators then those that voted for it.

Also, everyone you know does not really mean the majority of the population. The vast majority of the population probably don't even know about it, or don't know the ramifications that could be associated with it. I'm betting that like most other things, the majority of the population is either ignorant of the subje

The majority of the population does NOT want to see this pass, yet it made it through the Senate with NO opposition?

It's post like these that make me wonder if people are really Americans posting. Because the Senate has a lot more than 19 people., this is just a committee. Now you can still wonder why there is no opposition in that small group, but I'm pretty sure not every Senator would vote for this when or if it comes up.

As the article summary states it will not even make it that fat thanks to the Hous

I never heard of either of them, nor have I heard of this "etc" you refer to.

"Court orders" could always shut down websites, or do anything else in compliance with the law. If these websites are really doing something illegal, then why this law? Something stinks. Smells like totalitarianism.

Can/b/tards get google, whitehouse.gov, or some other random website taken down with this?

I'd be more concerned if/b/tards and anonymous got 4Chan taken down with this - after all, wouldn't it only take 1 shot from a copyrighted movie? (And if you've ever been to/gif/ you should know how many of those there are. You probably didn't notice it because its hidden amongst the porn though)

No [gpo.gov]. It only applies to a site already subject to civil forfeiture (which means a bunch of things have been proven about it already) or that is "primarily designed, has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than, or is marketed by its operator, or by a person acting in concert with the operator, to offer—" either copyrighted works "in complete or substantially complete form" "without the authorization of the copyright owner or otherwise by operation of law [which includes fair

Anyone who has bought a copy of the film Song of the South on DVD-R at the flea market, sold by someone ignorant of copyright term extension acts who thinks U.S. copyright on works published under the Copyright Act of 1909 still lasts 56 years as it did when they were published.

Or anyone who bought a copy of the album All Things Must Pass by George Harrison. A court ruled that the song "My Sweet Lord", which appears on this album and accounted for the supermajority of this album's airplay, was an infringing copy of "He's So Fine" by Ronald Mack, which the Chiffons had popularized.

Actually Harrison['s estate] now owns the copyright on "He's So Fine".

Then consider Three Boys Music v. Bolton, about "Love is a Wonderful Thing" by Michael Bolton.

About Song of the South which I believe is out of copyright in some of the world including here in Canada. What if an American legally buys it here and then goes home with it?

"In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited." 17 USC 602(b). [copyright.gov] The exception for personal baggage in 602(a)(3)(C) appears to apply only to 602(a), not 602(b).

The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 19-0 in favor of a bill that would allow the Department of Justice to seek court orders to shut down websites offering materials believed to infringe copyright.

The DOJ needed a senate bill to allow them to "seek court orders"? Getting a court order is usually where the process for this sort of thing STARTS.

I can see the good intentions of the legislators, but I'm also worried about the execution and application that this may bring. Waiting for comments about the lawmakers being bought out and the end of the Internet as we know it.

We cannot excuse the behavior because it happens online and the owners operate overseas.

Why not? You can excuse the behavior if it happens offline and the owners operate overseas.

Or are there American law enforcement officials going and raiding shops in China that are selling pirated copies of Windows?

And I don't think letting the DoJ decide who gets shut down or not is entirely fair. You know that Google/Youtube ends up hosting copyrighted material every now and then - and then they get notified and they end up taking it down (or taking out the audio track). So if I host a little site for me and a few role players - and one of them posts a bit of a DnD Manual - am I at risk of my website being cut off from Americans without notice? Or worse - taken down entirely somehow?

Which brings up an interesting point: How would a government org go about shutting down a rogue server? Lets pretend it is hosted in some remote country, so sending a CnD letter is probably ineffective. Blocking the DNS entries will just result in people putting up non-us filtered DNS servers, and you are playing whack a mole to try to find them and block them. You could put ip-filters on all the trunks going in and out of the country, but that's another game of whack a mole, since any proxy server outside the country can redirect.

I am not a networking expert, but even if you had the political will to do this, it seems to me it would be no more than an inconvenience for anyone determined enough.

That's easy: By making it 'blocked enough.' The block doesn't have to be perfect - it just has to take long enough to get around that most people wouldn't bother. Or, even more effectively, make it look like some sort of technical problem. That way people will just assume the server is down, and not even try to find a way around blocks. There just isn't a need for a perfect block.

Because information on the Internet is fast and free, if 1 person finds a way around your block 5 minutes after it is in place, 10 million people can know about it in under a day, and your little information embargo is a futile exercise. If you made the same comment about how 'security through obscurity works' in the context of OS security, you would be laughed off Slashdot. Why would general blocking of sites be any different?

There cannot be multiple root zones. That just is not feasible. But the US only controls the gTLDs and one ccTLD. The other TLDs are owned by their respective countries. The US cannot have them removed from the root without causing a major incident, the result of which would include the Internet Society appointing some other organization as IANA (and thus killing ICANN and US control of the DNS).

Explanation: ICANN exists solely to be a policy creating shell around the IANA. Legally the Internet Society (ISO

The "root zone" is in fact only the root zone for the root-servers.net roots. You can, and people have, created alternate root servers. You can do it in your house if you like. You can make your own root zone, own TLDs, etc. Nobody but you will probably use them, but you can do it.

So what the EU could do is make an organization, call it EUCANN (pronounced you can) because it is relevant and funny. Have that organization organization maintain a root file and setup a bunch of root servers that get their info from it. Initially, just mirror the ICANN root file. Once the system is up and running and stable, get popular DNS programs like BIND and the MS DNS server to include your roots too. Shouldn't be hard, just that much more stable for them. Heck maybe they'll prefer those roots in the EU zone. Once your system is running and useful, then contact ICANN and say "Hey, how about we split the root responsibility. We'll be responsible for all EU countries, you for everything else." So the root file isn't really split, but if the EU updates EU zone info, ICANN mirrors that, if ICANN updates other info, EUCANN mirrors that.

Normally, this has little effect other than that EUCANN could decide if a given company should get control of a given TLD instead of ICANN. However in the event ICANN flips their lid and does shit they shouldn't, well then EUCANN doesn't have to go along with it. Say ICANN decides that France if full of dirty liberals and terrorists and simply gets rid of.fr. EUCANN can refuse to mirror that. People can then use the EUCANN roots and not the effectively damaged ICANN ones.

It would provide resilience against any one country being a dick about things.

Its very difficult to come up with an example of the legislative branch (or the judicial or the executive for that matter) doing a thorough, cogent job of dealing with technology and the law.

For the most part, their investors..er...campaign donors tell them what to believe and how to vote and that is as deep as it goes.

The sad thing is that over time, we'll end up with some legislators who get it, but by then, the current level of corruption will have been instiitutionalized and they will be so unacquainted with the Constitution and ethics and so beholden to the donations of their masters that it won't make much difference.

Let me explain. Things that should be "legal" are made clear with the digital age. Information is not a crime. Knowing how to build a Nuclear Reactor is not a crime. Knowing how to slim jim a car, is not a crime. Having a gun, is NOT a crime.

You see, crime is crime. You cannot STOP a crime by preventing access to tools to commit a crime. You only make it more difficult.

This line of thinking ALSO applies to the security theater done by the TSA and other agencies. However we have a popula

when they get to the SneakerNet Shut-Down Bill? Thanks! Why aren't the New Tea Partiers stopping the insanity... wait, nevermind. Smells like more government, this MUST be those dang Demo-crats again, tarnations!!(!

"believed to" . . . whatever happened to "proved, beyond a reasonable doubt?" All "in Soviet Russia" jokes aside, this sounds like being able to "denounce" someone, and get them shipped off to the Gulag. If you can prove that a site it infringing on copyrights, fine shut them down. However, if the charge is, "I think that it might be possible that this could be potentially infringing on copyrights that might be possibly owned by someone" . . . no, thanks.

Love this part under Non-Domestic Domains, Required Actions...(i) a service provider... or other operator of a domain name system server shall take reasonable steps that will prevent a domain name from resolving to that domain name’s Internet protocol address;

So, we'll just refuse to resolve any domains that are outside the jurisdiction of the US, but that are deemed to offend the standards listed here? This, to me, sounds a bit like that whole filtering of information thing that Secretary Clinton said was a Bad Thing in China.

Leahy seems to always be at the forefront of these draconian pro-IP laws. On non-copyright/patent/etc. related issues, he's actually fairly civil-libertarian, so it doesn't seem like he's one of those authoritarians for whom more government police power for its own sake, and copyright infringement is just a convenient excuse for introducing them (the way many Republicans are on "terrorism"). It seems he actually does want strong enforcement of copyright laws, and that that's his motivator, not an excuse. But he's Senator for Vermont, a place not exactly known for its large media industry. It would make more sense to me if he were from CA or FL or something.

Now that he's become one of the media industry's bet friends in Washington, he gets a bunch of media donations, which could explain his continued advocacy on the subject. But how did a Senator from VT end up in that position in the first place? Personal conviction? Opportunism?

a provision in the bill was a requirement for ISP's to REDIRECT traffic if the offenders are offshore. Now we all know there are ways around that, but it's not exactly a "we're offshore so you can't touch us" deal.

I doubt that these senators have considered the possibly that being able to shut down an offending site (say Bing, Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, Youtube, ) wouldn't have significant collateral damage.

This is equivalent to shutting down an entire mall (which happens to include an office for the County Tax Assessor, small FBI field office, post office and police substation) on the account of one bad employee grossly (mis)representing the interests of the merchant renting space in said mall.

Bottom line:Merely having such a kill switch is not a license use it indiscriminately and not face the consequences of its misuse.(Notice that engineers are required to retain errors and omissions insurance for bad engineering decisions, but no legislator is required to retain insurance for passing of bad laws.)

Sure, then all they need to do is find a friendly judge that will rubber-stamp these types of requests. I'm sure there are plenty of federal judges who have bought the **AA's propaganda enough to agree to shut down any website they're asked to in the name of protecting copyright.

A court order should not be enough to shut down someone's free speech rights. If they want to shut down a website they should have to actually bring charges against the website owner, and have the site shut down only following

Sure, then all they need to do is find a friendly judge that will rubber-stamp these types of requests. I'm sure there are plenty of federal judges who have bought the **AA's propaganda enough to agree to shut down any website they're asked to in the name of protecting copyright.

Or just want to get some extra money for their district. I remember reading an article about how one court district in east Texas is making millions off of lawyers and lobbyists by being more amenable to copyright/patent litigation.

I imagine it'll be used in a similar way to DMCA requests are now as a means to silence criticisms. Imagine, just as a hypothetical example, the Church of Scientology seeking court orders to shut down sites that expose the very strange teachings of their higher level texts. Or a software company trying to surpress news of a security breach by shutting down any sites publishing it, on the grounds that the exploit requires the modification of copyrighted code, or a celebrity trying to stop the distribution of some embarassing video that escaped from a private party or a members-only invited speech. All things that the DMCA has been used for in the past - but this new measure is somewhat more effective, because if the recieving end doesn't comply you can just have their server unplugged or site blocked rather than having to spend weeks on civil action that would more likely than not just lead to the undesired embarassment being further publicised.

"The sites still has to have a primary purpose of infringing on copyright."
All those examples I made above have actually happened. The DMCA's takedown system is intended for sites which have the primary purpose of infringing on copyright, but that doesn't mean those were the *only* sites it ended up used against. For example, the Church of Scientology used a DMCA takedown notice to remove a video on youtube of Cruise giving a speech at one of their private functions, and have used DMCA notices to close do